Excelsior!

Hey everyone. Just finished sleeping till about 3AM here and I am starting my 3rd day here in Uganda, in what was the Kingdom of Buganda, where they speak Lugandan. Fun stuff, am I right?

Day one really consisted of the planes, trams, and automobiles.

I left with my sweetheart on Friday morning for the airport. Spent the time talking, hugging, and already missing her. The details of this time I’ll keep between us, but I can say I lost a part of me at security.

From Portland to  Amsterdam I spent the majority of a 10 hour flight in a pretty technical conversation with Danny, a German engineer. We talked about his work in different fields of automation from computers to bio-medical engineering. I hope to meet up with him again when our paths next lead us back to Portland.

The last hour or so of my flight was spent flailing in an attempt to come up with character names and story arcs for a novel. Hopefully with time that will change. My intuition says, “… no”.

The Second flight consisted of a short layover in Kigali, Rwanda and then onto Entebbe in Uganda. Word to the wise, you apparently can’t bring plastic bags into Kigali. During the flight I caught up with Iron Man 3 and further developed the plot of the novel. I also rediscovered my inability to draw maps (damn you Tolkien and George Martin!).

In conclusion, we jumped off the plane, were unable to find our transport (the Project house didn’t know we were arriving), and had to taxi it North to Kampala. The drive was generally enlightening. My father once recalled his memory of observing Iraqi’s driving as, “like watching people trying to drive like they walked”, which I feel captures the basics of Ugandan maneuvers. Alternatively, there is a huge degree of spatial awareness that precludes most accidents. As a result I was only exposed to one situation where afterward I had to remind myself that I could relax my sphincter.

To conclude, Megan and I rolled into the Project house around 12:45 at night on Saturday in Uganda. We passed out soon after messaging our respective beloveds that we had arrived.

-Brian